Social Media Addiction and Formal Writing Skills among Mass Communication Students in Osogbo, Southwestern Nigeria

Abstract

This study was carried out on the influence of social media chatting on formal writing habit among university undergraduates. Literature has reported bot adverse and no effect of social media on students' writing habit. Findings vary from time to time and from place to place. This current study looks at a direction that had rarely been looked at by earlier researchers- the influence of social media on formal writing skills of Mass Communication students in a private university in south-western Nigeria. Using a multi-level sampling technique involving purposive, stratification and total population sampling, 143 answer scripts of a first-year writing course in the Department of Mass Communication were examined through content analysis. The study found that in the case of Mass Communication students, social media do not have such overwhelming adverse influence as associated with it on the writing competence of undergraduate students. Among all types of social media chat language, graphones rank highest in use among the study population. Many other factors, including writing training, interplay with social media to cause the poor writing competence among university undergraduates.  It was then recommended that further research is conducted in this area of enquiry to unveil specific areas yet untrodden. Colleges and tertiary institutions should institute courses that can improve the writing skills and the ability of the students.